"93 Million Miles"

Warp

Artists:

Last year, Steve Spacek and Mark Pritchard pooled their veteran-level resources into an arresting single, "Blen", a jittery avalanche that reconfigured the post-funky/dubstep diaspora into some collar-yanking jump-up business. Most of the pleasures on Africa Hitech's album 93 Million Miles are similarly immediate-- shuffling 2-step loops that jump out fully formed into roiling rhythms from the first moment, giving you 15 seconds to make up your mind and the remaining five minutes or so to let it rattle through your body. But the album's leadoff cut/title track plays things differently, a sneaky buildup that waves you along instead of grabbing your hand. That woozy, muffled little synth line seeping out over the persistent whomp whomp whomp bass kick of the intro is engaging enough, especially once you zone in on the snare that drops in-- first as a surreptitious omen, then as the fully integrated second step-- and hints at busier things to come. Things get hectic pretty quick-- claps and kicks trickling in, then pouring down, finding new pockets two beats after all the previous ones seem filled already. Once the 1,000-watt glow of the bassline casts up enough sparks to cause all that liquid percussion to temporarily vaporize, it's enough to make the intricacy of that just-vanished rhythm really start to sink in-- and the continued breakdown-buildup cycle of that beat keeps heads and feet guessing all the way to its slow-motion collapse of an outro.